Until somebody else steps in to help, I can recommend Schott.
http://www.schottnyc.com/
Many of their jackets are made in the US, and are really well made, very durable and long lasting. For example, my dad had one he got I think a couple years after I was born (I'm 30) and for all intents and purposes it's barely broken in.
As far as rain, unless you live in the Amazon, you shouldn't have a problem. I'm pretty absent-minded about caring for my jackets, and I mainly live in Oregon, where it rains all the time. I've never had a problem, but I always make sure that my jacket drys out if I've been out in the rain. You could run into some issues with suede, but even so, you can treat it the same way you treat leather shoes.
You're going to have to spend around $350-400 for a nice quality jacket, or you are probably going to have to deal with linings that start to fray, thin leather, etc. I would stay away from the "designer" brands like the plague, as they're mostly built as badly as the JC Penney stuff these days. Try looking for jackets made in the US, Canada, Oz or Kiwi or the UK and you should have long years of good service. FWIW, the best jacket leather seems to come from down under or the UK as they use a lot less barbed wire, so the skins don't have to be split or cut around scars.
FYI I think there's still a motorcycle jacket & skins company in (IIRC) Gresham OR that makes nice full hide thick custom jackets for a surprisingly reasonable price. Maybe somebody here remembers the name, I certainly don't. Those jackets are bombproof and could probably fend off a saber-tooth tiger attack, but you have to have a pretty butch look to pull them off, and about $600 to spend. My buddy has a jacket from them and it looks great, but he's out of town and I won't be able to reach him.
Now's actually a great time to look for a leather jacket, as the winter season's ending, the holiday season stank, and the economy is tanking; you should be able to find a good deal. If you live near a big city, try to find the main leather goods shop in town and see if they're doing any 50% deals for example. (Edit: haha, you live in Irvine. Your biggest problem will not be finding a leather store, but finding one that charges less than both you and your woman's legs)
